JEWISH POETS (renown and unknown)
Presented by the Las Vegas Jewish Film Festival, Poetry Promise and Clark County Poet Laureate
JEWISH POETS (renown and unknown) celebrates the historic achievement of Louise Glück receiving the 2020 Nobel Prize for Literature, and raises awareness of Hyam Plutzik, whose work has become obscured over time.
Click here to learn more about Louise Glück.
Click here to learn more about Hyam Plutzik.
What elevates a poet to fame? How does the burden of sustaining legacy impact the decedents of under-acknowledged artists? JEWISH POETS explores the relationship between art and permanence through three unique events.
Program 1: HYAM PLUTZIK: AMERICAN POET Viewing
VIEW NOW THROUGH MARCH 31, 2021
Directed by Christine Choy & Ku-Ling Siegel USA | 54 minutes | 2007
The son of Russian Jewish emigrants, Hyam Plutzik, was the first Jewish professor at the University of Rochester and a recipient of a Pulitzer Prize nomination. The documentary explores the work of this significant but forgotten/neglected Jewish writer and features interviews with influential poets of the 20th-century, including Stanley Kunitz.
HYAM PLUTZIK: AMERICAN POET Discussion
Featuring Bruce Isaacson and Moderated by Joshua Abbey
Bruce Isaacson earned degrees at Claremont McKenna, Dartmouth, and Brooklyn College, where he submitted a thesis to noted American poet Allen Ginsberg. He is publisher of Zeitgeist Press, with over 100 poetry titles to date, and sometimes associated with the Cafe Babar 1980s San Francisco Bay Area spoken word revival. He was the first Poet Laureate of Clark County, Nevada and is a founder of Poetry Promise, a non-profit created to advance the knowledge and practice of poetry.
Program 2: Louise Glück Interview and Reading
Join us for a pre-recorded interview and reading with Louise Glück, compiled and introduced by Gregory Crosby.
NOW THROUGH March 31, 2021
Gregory Crosby is the author of Said No One Ever, (Brooklyn Arts Press, 2021) and Walking Away From Explosions in Slow Motion (The Operating System, 2018), as well as the chapbooks Spooky Action at a Distance (The Operating System, 2014) and The Book of Thirteen (Yes Poetry Press, 2016). For more than a decade he worked as an art critic, columnist and cultural commentator in Las Vegas, where he served as a poetry consultant for the Cultural Affairs Division and was instrumental in the creation of the Poets Bridge public art project. He was awarded a Nevada Arts Council Fellowship in Literary Arts and holds an MFA in creative writing from the City College of New York, where he won the 2006 Marie Ponsot Poetry Prize. He is an adjunct associate professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and teaches creative writing at Lehman College–CUNY. On July 28, 2020 Crosby read for the Brooklyn Poets Reading Series at the NYC Poetry Festival on Governors Island with Asiya Wadud and Jericho Brown.
Program 3: Louise Glück Workshop
Join Us For a Louise Glück Workshop Hosted By Heather Lang-Casera March 13, 2021 7PM
Heather Lang-Cassera serves as Clark County Poet Laureate and was named 2017 “Best Local Writer or Poet” by the readers of Nevada Public Radio’s Desert Companion. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing with a Graduate Certificate in Literary Translation. She serves as an Editor for Tolsun Books, World Literature Editor for The Literary Review, and Guest Poetry Editor for Witness. Her poems have been published by many literary journals, such as Lumina, The Normal School, North American Review, South Dakota Review, and elsewhere. Heather’s chapbook, I was the girl with the moon-shaped face, was published by Zeitgeist Press. Her book of poems, Gathering Broken Light, is forthcoming with Unsolicited Press. The writing of this book was supported, in part, by a Nevada Arts Council Project Grant for Artists. At Nevada State College, Heather teaches College Success, Composition, and Creative Writing.